I wasn’t at Quantum Information Science Workshop in Vienna, VA, but I heard that the topic of quantum computing “going black” came up at least a few times. One speaker mentioned during his talk that several of his former graduate students were now in “the black hole” of secret U.S. research programs and another expressed, during the open session, that the field is not yet mature enough to be conducting secret research.
Continue reading “Die Sauerkraut ist in mein Lederhosen”
IWODD, Would You?
The “International Workshop on Dynamical Decoupling (IWODD)” now has a web site with information on the conference Oct 5-6 in Boulder, CO:
Dynamical decoupling techniques show the potential to dramatically suppress errors in quantum information and quantum control systems. To date, research in this area has been scattered between magnetic resonance experimentalists and quantum information theorists. This workshop aims to foster new relationships between experimental and theoretical researchers in an effort to speed technical developments and to promote the adoption of dynamical decoupling techniques across a variety of qubit technologies. Follow this link to see the list of invited speakers which includes Erwin Hahn, who pioneered the spin echo, as a keynote speaker.
Bacon Home Shopping
Via Mark, I get an unusual home shopping network:
The Secret Order of the ArXiv
The astro/physics blogosphere is all atwitter about papers the Nature embargo policy (See Julianne If a paper is submitted to nature does it still make a sound, the cat herder Hear a paper, see a paper, speak no paper, and he of less than certain principles Unhealthy obsessions of academia. He of uncertain principles loses the catchy title contest 🙂 )
Continue reading “The Secret Order of the ArXiv”
IARPA Withdraws Funding From Major NIST Quantum Computing Groups
David Wineland runs a world class lab at NIST Boulder which has been at the forefront of ion trap quantum computing. William Phillips is a Nobel prizing winning physicist who also does quantum computing at NIST, this time at NIST Gaithersburg. To say that these are two top researchers in quantum computing, is a massive understatement. Both of the groups have produced their ground breaking work with the support of numerous alphabet soup government agencies throughout the years. Now comes word, via a Nature news article that IARPA, the intelligence community’s version of DARPA, has decided to stop funding these group’s research in quantum computing. Ostensibly the reason for this is that IARPA does not want to fund other agencies work. As a bureaucratic bullet point that sounds fine, but as a practical matter, it is, I must say, stark raving crazy. Or, as Ivan Deutsch put it in the Nature news article:
“Anyone who hears about this is shocked beyond belief,” says Ivan Deutsch of the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. “The world leader in quantum computing having funding being terminated based on a technicality seems incredibly shortsighted.”
A letter has been sent to John Holdren, the director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, protesting this move.
As a research pseudo professor I depend on research funding to keep me afloat (ah, the luxury of those professor’s who actually know they will get paid in a year’s time.) Things like this scare me, not because I think I’ll run across this particular variation on crazy funding decisions, but because it reminds me that directions for researching funding come down from way up in the great clogs of the government. And if David Wineland and Bill Phillips are subject to these whims, well, then, I fear that I, a minor theorist, am completely totally doomed. In the mean time, I guess all I can do is put my two cents in that this funding move is a really really bad idea.
Make Em Laugh, Make Em Cry
Scenes from today’s CSE 322 (introduction to formal methods in computer science) final:
Nobacon
A former student sent me what appears to be my doppelganger: Danbert Nobacon. Life with no bacon, well that’s just crazy.
In other Bacon related news: Jorge sends me Bacon Vodka…from Seattle. This will surely save me time because frying up bacon to mix in my wodka for my bacon vodka martini was always a real time sink.
Campus Ad
In the University of Washington’s “The Daily” in the lost and found section:
FOUND – PANDA head, appears to be a part of a missing suit. Recovered near 45th and Memorial. presumably stolen by ill-advised sorority girls during their week-long, drunken stupor
My Most Used iPhone Apps
The iPhone is a great gadget (as a phone, it’s okay. Personally I wish it could be made a bit louder as my ears, they ain’t so good at that hearing thing.) Here are the apps I’ve found that I use the most. (Excluding google maps, the built in email and browser, and the phone functions, of course. Having google maps available so easily really is an amazing piece of functionality to have in a phone, I must say.)
Continue reading “My Most Used iPhone Apps”
Film Reviews in Nature Physics?
What in the world is a review for Star Trek doing in Nature Physics? (Thank to reader W for pointing this out.) I mean, at least the review of Angels and Demons has references to physics, but the review of Star Trek, is, well, just a review of Star Trek with no reference physics or science or, well, anything that I could see the audience of Nature Physics relating to.
I’m not saying I don’t appreciate the review, or the book/art section of Nature Physics, but doesn’t this seem a bit out of place. It is too bad, indeed, because the movie does contain time travel, and as Cosmic Sean demonstrated their is ample fodder for a review of Star Trek that at least pulls in some fun physics.
In a related note, Nature physics now requires a statement of author’s contributions. (“Dave Bacon’s contribution was to sit around and crack jokes all day while we worked hard and tried not to get distracted.”)